


The Mirrored Shield

by SpellCleaver



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Curses, Desert, Gen, Murder, Sand sprites, Slavery, a lot of characters only mentioned but important to the discussion, highly highly likely, me? writing another fantasy au? for a dear friend of mine?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25750474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpellCleaver/pseuds/SpellCleaver
Summary: Luke Skywalker, heir to a long line of noble knights, has gone to confront the demon who keeps disrupting his family's attempts to free slaves and going on murder rampages.The conversation does not go the way he expects it to.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker
Comments: 22
Kudos: 187





	The Mirrored Shield

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prayforpiett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prayforpiett/gifts).



> You know when you have an idea? And it's so broad? And brilliant? And you write something and it's hardly a snippet of what you imagined but at least it's an important snippet?? If anyone is interested in other details of this AU that I just sort of name dropped, I have a mental worldbuilding and plot file that did not make it into this story AT ALL.
> 
> Also, I know this is somewhat similar to [another fic I wrote for a friend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23467168) but I think I'm starting to realise that I have specific Defaults.
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ESME!

"You are afraid."

The voice came out of darkness and there was nothing human in it: only menace. Luke squeezed his eyes shut and inched forwards, painstakingly aware of tiny stones shifting and scraping underfoot, of the hilt of his father's sword growing sweaty in his hand.

"You have a reputation back in Bestine, you know," was all Luke said. He did open his eyes this time, turning his back on the voice and unslinging his shield from across his shoulders. It was massive, too heavy for Luke to wield it comfortably, and built for his relatives—they had been much taller and stronger than he was. But it would do the job he needed it to do.

The wind whistled through the mesa pass as Luke finally opened his eyes, squinting against the sand on the breeze.

The starlight was bright tonight; it glinted silver in the smooth, flat back of his shield. The moon loomed overhead.

And when he angled his shield just right, he saw the creature's reflection.

Vader was as all the drawings and speculations had depicted him but _worse_. Luke had studied the pages on sand sprites in all the demonologies and his appearance wasn't _unexpected_ , just _unwelcoming_ to see in person. A humanoid figure with skin that seemed made of crumbling beige and gold sand, parts of him dissolving like shifting dunes and blowing in the wind. His knuckles and joints were the same blocks of stone the mesas and canyons were, browned and bleached in constant sunlight; his eyes were twin suns, devouring the rest of his face with light. To look at it head on _at all_ was to go blind; to look him in the _eye_ was to drop into a pile of bloody dust. A part of the desert.

Usually sand sprites were just myths; when they _were_ around, they could usually be reasoned with. Just don't trespass on their parts of the desert, respect them, and they would respect you.

But Vader...

Vader was dangerous.

"You're from Bestine? Well then," a chuckle like rocks scraping together, and Luke watched Vader finally turn from the entrance to his cave to look at him, "you must be here to kill..."

Their eyes met in the reflection of the mirrored shield, blue boring into gold, and Luke saw Vader's face... crack. Crack in two, the sand shifting into the gaps of his widening orifices in what seemed to be _shock_. For a moment, his expression was a small sandstorm, then it dropped back into apathy.

"...me," he finished, not quite as strong as he'd started.

Luke just lifted his chin. "No," he said clearly. "I'm just here to try to talk to you. I want you to stop attacking—"

"Bestine? Mos Eisley? Mos Espa? They are hotbeds of corruption. Slavery and viciousness and brutality." Vader ground out the accusation with a vibrant, personal hatred. "I will continue to attack it until every person within each of those city walls is freed."

Luke swallowed. "Well... good. But— can you be more _careful_ about it?"

Vader frowned. "I am unsure what you mean."

"I hate slavery as well. We are _doing something about it_. My aunt and uncle and I, my friends, we're _doing something_. There are anti-slavery rings, rescue operations, freedom chains and trails... If you were only killing Jabba and his men, I wouldn't be objecting!" He took in a deep breath; it didn't help. When he spoke, it was through teeth gritted with anger. "But you are _killing_ people from my village, other liberators, and you are doing nothing but leave a bloody swathe across the desert."

"So you are here to kill me?"

"No!" Luke insisted.

"Yet you come to me with mirrored shield and sword."

"If you decide to attack _me_ , as well, it won't hurt me to be prepared," Luke said stubbornly. "But I won't attack you first. I— I know my grandmother brokered a peace treaty with the sand sprites, when she was Governor for Tatooine. I know she would advocate for a solution that avoided _more killing_. I do not intend to dishonour her, or her legacy."

Vader snorted. It sounded like a whistling—the wind through porous rock.

"Your grandmother," he said flatly. "Knight Shmi Skywalker, of the Mirrored Shield. Daughter of the Desert and the Dust."

Luke went pale, but before he could speak—

"She was noble and just, and when she governed Tatooine it was a haven of culture, of trade, of _free men_. She has been dead for eighteen years. Jabba is governor now. She has no _legacy_ left to dishonour; he has crushed it back to the dust of slavery from whence she came."

Luke swallowed. "You... you know who my grandmother was?"

"As well as I know who you are, Luke Skywalker." Luke shivered, despite the fact he was dressed warm for the desert night. "You carry her shield and your father's sword well."

Luke... closed his eyes. Frowned. He was fairly sure Vader wasn't going to attack him, not without provocation, so he lowered his weapon and sheathed it at his side again.

"My father is dead," he said shortly. "Executed for murder. _Attempted_ murder, that is." _And treason_.

"He was avenging your mother's death with that murder—another knight of the state, slaughtered because her anti-slavery allegiances did not line up with our benevolent emperor's vision for the future."

Luke flinched. "She— she was—" He composed himself again.

"Knight Amidala drowned in the lakes of her homeland and she wanders there still, as something no longer in a human form, as is the way. But did you really think that an accomplished woman from Theed would not know how to swim?"

No. Luke _had_ found that fishy.

But he didn't want to think too hard on that, because... he didn't want to dwell on what it would mean.

"Your father... all he did, was to avenge her."

"I—" Luke gritted his teeth. "I didn't come here to talk about my mother—or my father."

"Because you are ashamed of him?"

"No! If I was, I wouldn't talk about him," Luke grumbled. "I'm _not_ here to talk about my family, in fact. I came to ask you to _stop attacking and murdering innocent civilians_ and be _a little more specific when you decide someone has to die_."

They glared at each other, ferociously.

Then Vader's voice softened.

"Apologies, little one. I swear to you that I will target the Hutts with more precision," he conceded. Luke tried not to betray his surprise.

Then Vader continued. "But I am... curious what incited you to come here to ask me that yourself, risking your life to do so. Your courage and generosity do your predecessors proud, but... what was the trigger?"

Luke said nothing.

"I have made an effort to avoid Anchorhead—any trails around there, any places your family had been operating out of."

Luke gaped. "You did? _Why_?"

"You have not answered my question."

Fresh grief welled up in Luke's chest and he found he couldn't hold Vader's gaze in the reflection. The stars shone brightly upon him and his fixed his eyes on the brightest of them.

The brightest stars, Ben had always told him, would be the soul of a loved one watching over him.

He wondered which loved one this was.

"You killed my godfather," he said at last.

Vader shifted like an avalanche. "Ah."

"He was freeing slaves in Mos Espa. Getting them out, to get through the canyons and head north. But you were targeting Gardulla at the same time."

"She is one of the more prodigious traders in the Hutt family. Her branch of operations was something important that needed destroying."

"And so was half the city while you hunted her, apparently," Luke muttered. "Either you don't know your own strength or you don't care, but you have killed _so many people_. The dust around that city is _almost permanently red_. And..." He wrapped his right arm around him. "Uncle Owen saw you crouch down in front of Ben, look right at him, and kill him."

"So you got out the shield of your grandmother and came to avenge him?" Vader said knowingly.

Luke clenched his fists. Closed his eyes against tears. "I thought better of it halfway here."

"Because you were afraid, or because you knew vengeance was not what he would want?"

Luke didn't answer.

A grinding chuckle. "Peace, little one. I know that it was the latter."

" _How_?" Luke demanded. "How do you know it was the latter? How do you know anything about me?"

Vader did not answer. Instead, he said, "Obi-Wan Kenobi was already dying. During his gambit to free those people, Gardulla's nephew, Rotta, had mortally wounded him; he was never going to stand again and walk out of there. So he wanted to die quickly, in the presence of an old friend."

Luke frowned.

"I... was saddened, but obliged."

A pause. "What your uncle saw of it may have been damning, but I have done my best to keep you and your family safe since the Golden Age of this empire, that age of greats and heroes, passed—ever since all your predecessors perished. When I killed him, it was intended to be a mercy."

"Why?" Luke whispered. He had no idea how to take any of this, and now his throat was raw from bottled sobs. "I don't understand."

"You came for vengeance, confronted me for mercy, and I am swearing to you that you will have it—all of it. This will not happen again. The Hutts will fall, and Tatooine—then the Empire—will be free. My purpose is your protector, not your terror; I will protect you. What is not to understand?"

" _Why_!" Luke repeated— _snapped_. " _Why_ your purpose is to be our protector!"

" _Your_ protector," Vader corrected. "Yours, Luke."

Luke resisted the urge to turn, stare at him and _glower_ straight on; he settled for doing so in the mirror. " _Why?_ "

Vader was silent for a moment.

Then he said, "Your father was sentenced to execution for attempted treason and murder of the Emperor Palpatine. But in the end, he was not, in fact, executed."

Luke frowned... then _stared_. "You mean—"

"Sand sprites are not born; it is a curse delivered from person to person, provided the recipient shares the right... magical criteria in his bloodline," Vader said. "Anakin Skywalker was handed to Jabba to do the honours of killing him, but Jabba... found that Skywalker met these criteria. You cannot be free of the curse without passing it on, and Jabba's son Rotta had been recently stuck with it—ever since Jinn, the sprite your grandmother brokered her treaty with, had been freed."

"You..." Luke bit his lip. "You mean to say..."

"I do."

Luke whirled on him, then, and Vader _hissed_ , like sand against rock— _"No!_ Foolish boy, turn _away!"_

Luke's eyes were already dazzled, and he'd barely glanced up. He turned back to scowl into the mirror.

"Why—" His voice trembled; he was mortified to realise he was far more hurt than angry. _"Why weren't you there?"_

"For this precise reason." Anakin's voice cracked with pain, and hatred. "How can I raise a child when he cannot look upon me without dying?"

A thick, fat tear rolled down Luke's cheek.

"I was there as much as I could be, Luke," his father whispered. "I watched you grow up. You never ran afoul of a sandstorm or slaver yourself; I made sure of it. And you... Your mother, your grandmother... they would be so proud of you."

A pause. _"I am so proud of you."_

Luke sobbed, taking deep sharp breaths, and Vader stood there awkwardly.

"Can the curse be reversed?" he asked. "Is there another way to free you?"

"Not that I know of."

"There has to be. I want— I want my—"

"I want my son, too," Anakin said sadly. "But it is too late for me, Luke. All I can be... is your protector. Your shield."

"My protector," Luke repeated to himself.

"It does not come with fancy titles like the Daughter of the Desert and the Dust. Or Amidala of the Silver Tongue. Or Luke the Liberator, as you will one day be called—"

Luke flushed. "I—"

"—but I am Vader, Luke's shield."

He smiled, the sand and stone of his face splitting to create the illusion.

"And that is enough for me."

* * *

In the history books, and the songs of glory and fame that saw the Hutts and the Emperor to their knees, it became a common image, once Luke had completed his training and become knighted. Knight Luke Skywalker, the Liberator, like his grandmother and father and family before him... and the sandstorm who hovered at his shoulder, the twin suns burning in his eyes.


End file.
